L.Tankersley Posted September 28, 2002 Share Posted September 28, 2002 When I got CMBB on my Mac I noticed that a few of the graphics just don't look very good. Specifically the minefield signs and the TRP target symbol look extremely low-resolution on my machine. Even if I go down to view 1 and move right up next to the sign, it's illegible. Now that I've got the PC version up and running, I see that this is not the case -- the signs look clear and crisp, just as they did in CMBO on my Mac. What's the deal? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarmo Posted September 28, 2002 Share Posted September 28, 2002 Dont know, but it's clear and crisp on my mac. (radeon graphics) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schrullenhaft Posted September 28, 2002 Share Posted September 28, 2002 I'm guessing that down-sampling of the textures occurs at different rates for different objects. Minefield signs, TRPs, grass & sky textures may be among the first textures to be downsampled (and have it be very noticeable). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jeffsmith Posted September 28, 2002 Share Posted September 28, 2002 I have noticed the TRP's look a bit "blocky" too but i did a test on a small QB and the mine signs looked ok 32 MB Radeon 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.Tankersley Posted September 29, 2002 Author Share Posted September 29, 2002 I switched to the original AGP video card and they are much crisper. General performance seems worse, though, and poorer screen resolution -- time to upgrade. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Emrys Posted September 30, 2002 Share Posted September 30, 2002 Originally posted by L.Tankersley: ...time to upgrade.Yeah, I'm thinking so myself. The grass looks pretty crappy, houses start to blur a little when I move up close, in fact most everything except vehicles loses on close examination. Mostly I've had pretty good framerates though, except today I loaded the Blitzkrieg operation and noticed that everything, including the cursor, had gotten very jerky. Time to move up to a 128MB card, I think. Michael 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarmo Posted September 30, 2002 Share Posted September 30, 2002 Well.. now I met the blurry things too. Extremely blurry text in Exit Zone markers, surprising, as the 32 MB Radeon should should be enough for CMBB. Cant upgrade in any case, not many PCI choices around.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewTF Posted October 1, 2002 Share Posted October 1, 2002 I just got CMBB last night and noticed that many of the textures were downsampled--specifically the uniforms and some of the vehicles. No framerate problems are apparent, yet. This is a bummer as I'm trying to test a new ultra-detailed, ultra-sharp German uniform mod set and everything looks kind of blurry in my display. I thought my 32MB Radeon card would be powerful enough to run CMBB with no problem. My CMBO is (as expected) modded to the gills and only has framerate issues when there's a lot of smoke and moving vehicles on a BIG map. Any suggestions for improving performance (short of buying a new video card)? I'll try trashing the CMBB preferences file and running it at 800x600, to see if that makes a difference. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PondScum Posted October 1, 2002 Share Posted October 1, 2002 We were told before release that CMBB would downsample on anything less than 64MB. Some of us went out and bought based 64MB cards based on that information 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewTF Posted October 1, 2002 Share Posted October 1, 2002 Originally posted by PondScum: We were told before release that CMBB would downsample on anything less than 64MB. Some of us went out and bought based 64MB cards based on that information Ah, I must not have been paying attention during that part of the lecture. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.Tankersley Posted October 1, 2002 Author Share Posted October 1, 2002 I wasn't on the distribution list for that memo, either. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndrewTF Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 Don't you just hate to be out of the loop? Guess I'm going to have to break down and replace the old "legacy" 8600 (w/G3+ other major upgrades) with something newer, as I can't find a PCI graphics card for the Mac with anything more than the 32MB that I have now. Funny how I bought the Radeon card specifically so I could play CMBO on my machine. I guess I'll just have to give up MODing--why bother if I can't see all the cool details and effects on my own machine. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.Tankersley Posted October 2, 2002 Author Share Posted October 2, 2002 Hmmmm. Okay, so I've got a Radeon 8500 in my machine now, 64MB memory. Everything looks nice. Except ... the smoke and dust. That looks lousy (basically, no transparency). I had transparency with the Orion. ::sigh:: 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PondScum Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 Found the original comment - it's by KwazyDog in this thread from March. Specifically, he said: As it is people with 32mb cards will may have their textures downsampled one level, so we *really* cant push the VRAM any further.Sorry to be the bearer of bad news... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.Tankersley Posted October 2, 2002 Author Share Posted October 2, 2002 I loaded a PBEM file and then escaped out to check texture memory usage -- it was up around 60MB. Things looked pretty spiffy, though. Update on the Radeon issue -- fog looks fine, I checked in the scenario editor. But smoke and dust clouds are completely fubar. The "high quality" smoke and dust graphics look pretty much exactly like the "fast and compatible" smoke graphics (that is, completely opaque), only about twice as big in every dimension. Building transparency still works too, btw. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk-vfa201 Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 I have a similar behavior with the fog but I manage to get better resolution and the high quality smoke: transparent and very good looking: quit CMBB and restart when the blocky smoke appears. If afresh I can see the high quality smoke and after a while it reverts to low quality on the same view. VooDoo 5500 3dfx on Mac B&W G3 Wonder if it would look better on a Titanium G4 512 MB 667MHz. Any experience? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk-vfa201 Posted October 2, 2002 Share Posted October 2, 2002 Sorry, not the fog, that looks nice: smok, the problem is with smoke. And artifacts/trees/wheat upclose. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.Tankersley Posted October 2, 2002 Author Share Posted October 2, 2002 Hmmm, interesting. I'm pretty sure I see this immediately after launch of CMBB but let me doublecheck tonight. I'm also going to fire up CMBO ("what's that?" I hear you ask) and see what the smoke looks like there now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.Tankersley Posted October 3, 2002 Author Share Posted October 3, 2002 Update: same smoke problem in CMBO. I also tried a virgin install of OS 9.2, same problem. Any other mac radeon 8500 users out there? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seahawk-vfa201 Posted October 3, 2002 Share Posted October 3, 2002 Originally posted by L.Tankersley: I'm also going to fire up CMBO ("what's that?" I hear you ask) [/QB]Oh not at all: I got CMBO the month they released it. At beginning I did not even had any MODS: very few available. Now my CMBO is maxed out in resolution and things look crispy and beautiful up close. I am bit disappointed I can't count the leaves on tree branches anymore! #1 view is such a deception. Is high-res in CMBB that more memory eater than a maxed out (totally maxed out) CMBO? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.Tankersley Posted October 3, 2002 Author Share Posted October 3, 2002 With a (moderately complex) CMBB scenario loaded, I checked and the card was using over 60MB of texture memory. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jarmo Posted October 4, 2002 Share Posted October 4, 2002 Hope someone'll do lo-res mods for CMBB.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.Tankersley Posted October 16, 2002 Author Share Posted October 16, 2002 Update: today, October 16, ATI has released new drivers for the ATI Radeon 8500 Mac Edition (thanks to jeffsmith for the heads-up). I will download and try it out tonight to see if it helps. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.Tankersley Posted October 17, 2002 Author Share Posted October 17, 2002 The new drivers don't appear to help the opaque smoke problem. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erik Wingren Posted October 17, 2002 Share Posted October 17, 2002 Thanks for keeping us updated re: Mac Radeon drivers. Interestingly, I've discovered that the "9000 Pro" seems to be really just an 8500 with different connectors. The drivers that came installed with the card are all 8500 drivers, and if you pick "Mac OS" and "Radeon 9000 Pro" on the driver d/l site at ATI.com, you get an error message saying "please choose a Mac OS product." I think the technical support department isn't supporting the marketing department's spiel. So anyway, I appreciate the updates. At least our fog works and is pretty.. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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